Destiny Had Other Plans
by FriedIce
Summary: So what if he would cease to exist? So what if the past was about to be inexplicably changed? Naruto just wanted out. He was just glad it was over. Destiny, however, had other plans.
1. Closing One Door

**Summary**

So what if he would cease to exist? So what if the past was about to be inexplicably changed? Naruto just wanted out. He was just glad it was over. Destiny, however, had other plans.

**Prologue  
Closing One Door**

Naruto knew he was too late just by looking at the empty room. Obito was gone.

"Naruto! What's going on?"

Spinning around, Naruto caught sight of Gaara approaching, bruised and bloodied from a particularly gory battle. His red hair seemed to merge with the rest of his face and his sand container was cracked.

Naruto gestured to the room.

They were deep within the ruins of Uzushiogakure, having tracked Obito for over two months to eventually come to this place. It had made Naruto feel sick at first, walking through the barren streets that his ancestor's had once populated, seeing the unending destruction that Uzu had faced, but he had bitten down the bile that rose in his throat and continued.

They had finally reached this room after being ambushed on the way. Gaara had stayed behind to deal with them. Speed was everything, he had insisted.

The room wasn't in the best of states. It was covered in dust and in disarray, with Obito's tracks clearly visible as they made their way to the centre of the room. The charred furniture was overturned and decades old blood stains still hung on the walls like a twisted form of artwork.

Painted in the centre of the floor, in sealing ink, was one of the most complex sealing arrays Naruto had ever seen.

Gaara immediately walked towards the seal, but Naruto shook his head.

"It might still be active," he warned.

With a nod, Gaara backed off, leaving Naruto to examine the seal.

The blond jinchuriki ran a rough hand around the edge of the array, his eyes flying over the familiar symbols. That was when he realised what it was.

"This," he shook his head. "This should be impossible."

Gaara looked at him expectantly.

"Do you know why the Uzumaki were so feared?" Naruto asked. "It was because they were capable of using seals to acheve things beyond human understanding. Uzu … was the home of space-time jutsu, more particularly, space-time fuuinjutsu." Naruto was trying his best to hide his shock. "This proficiency was the reason for the Second Shinobi War, when four of the five kage villages joined together to eliminate Uzushiogakure." Naruto paused, looking in awe at the array. "But this… this is space-time manipulation taken to a whole new level."

Naruto's eyes glinted in the dim light as he caught Gaara's gaze.

"This, Gaara, is a time-travel technique."

It took all of three seconds for Gaara to react.

"The chakra capacity needed for this—" he began, but Naruto shook his head.

"He captured the bijuu, didn't he?" Naruto asked calmly. "All bar me. That's near unlimited chakra right there alone."

Gaara stared in shock, before beginning to talk hurriedly.

"Well, what are we waiting for, then?" the redheaded kage asked. "Go after him! You still have the Kyuubi, we can still—"

Naruto was merely shaking his head.

"Gaara, it's over."

"—It's not perfect, but—" Gaara broke off from his tirade. "Wait, what?"

"Gaara, I'm sick of it all," Naruto said. "I'm sick of the war, of the backstabbing, of the losses. It's over now, and I'm not about to screw with something as dangerous as time to continue a battle I don't even want."

Gaara stared at Naruto in pure shock.

"You can't be serious," he eventually stammered out.

"I just want out," Naruto said tiredly.

"You do realise the first thing he's going to do when he gets back is kill you, right?" Gaara couldn't believe it. This was Uzumaki Naruto – dare he say it? – giving up.

"I don't care anymore," Naruto explained. "He's someone else's problem now."

Naruto turned away from Gaara, preparing to leave.

CRUNCH!

Naruto didn't see the punch coming. But he sure as hell felt it.

"Snap out of it, Naruto!" Gaara snapped, standing before him. "You were the one who told me you never gave up! Quit being so selfish!"

"So what?!" Naruto shouted back in rage. "My entire life – never have I been selfish! I deserve to be selfish just this—"

Naruto cut himself off as he gasped in pain. His heart felt … like it was on fire. A shaking hand brought itself up to his chest to clutch the cloth above his heart in agony.

Gritting his teeth through the pain, Naruto attempted a '_kai'_. Nothing happened.

_Kurama… _Naruto began in his mind. _Fight this. Please._

"Naruto?"

Naruto's vision was spinning as he looked into his friend's eyes. He tried to say something, anything, but couldn't. The anguish continued, growing in magnitude. Where was the kyuubi's chakra? With rasping breaths, Naruto struggled desperately against the crushing wave of pain that was overcoming his senses. Suddenly, his knees gave way and he fell to the ground.

"Naruto!"

Worry, Naruto realised dazedly. Gaara was worried.

"No! No! No! No! NO! You can't die, Naruto!"

Naruto wanted to calm Gaara down. An attempt at smiling reassuringly at Gaara spread across his face but the expression only seemed to make the redheaded kage even more panicked. Naruto tried to reach up to Gaara and comfort him, but he found he couldn't move. Naruto desperately wanted to say he'd be fine, but he just couldn't.

"NO! You promised, damnit! You said you'd never go back on your word!"

Naruto smiled weakly at that. He had said that, hadn't he? Well, he supposed dryly, that probably made him a liar.

_**Kit?**_

_Kurama… You sure took your time…_

"No! Please, Naruto! Don't die! Don't leave me alone!"

_Kurama … please … whatever is happening … fight it…_

Naruto felt his vision fade to black.

"NARUTO!"

The anguished scream of pure grief could be heard throughout the entirety of the ruins. It echoed and reverberated, all the way until the world was reset.

Then, the scream faded, and everything was painted with white.

* * *

_Well,_ _hello everyone! This is FriedIce, with another fic. I'm just playing around with genres atm._

_This is my take on a peggy-sue Naruto. It stemmed from the idea of Obito travelling back in time to kill Naruto, and then the idea of destiny. I hope you enjoy it!  
_

_FriedIce  
_

_PS: REVIEW!  
_


	2. Not Quite As Planned

**Chapter One  
Not Quite As Planned**

The reaction was instant, a reflex that had been drilled into him by years of fighting. Adrenaline started to pump through his system, his vision developed the sharp focus he always seemed to gain in a fight and he reacted to the danger in his surroundings without even thinking about it.

He had barely even registered the kunai against his throat before he was forming a _rasengan_ and jamming it into his attacker.

There was a reason, after all, that people preferred to fight him long-range.

Naruto's _rasengan_ smashed into his attacker's torso, releasing a chakra spike so large that Naruto had no doubt Gaara would feel it and come to his aid.

_Wait a second… Something's not right._

It had felt odd moving his arm, not like he was expecting to hit further than it had, but like his chakra pathways were strained from pumping so much through them.

Naruto stared down at his hands, noting how much smaller they were than they used to—

Crap.

Naruto, despite appearances, was not an idiot. Even if he was, the blond highly suspected that even an idiot could do the maths in regard to this. Time-travel sealing array plus blacking out plus turning chibi… It wasn't that hard to figure out what happened.

Naruto cast his eyes over to where his attacker lay sprawled on the ground, a gaping hole in his chest. That was when Naruto took in the orange mask.

_And, _Naruto realised just who he had killed.

"Oh shit."

* * *

Haku hadn't planned for any drama at all as he went to gather herbs to treat Zabuza's injuries. He had deliberately chosen a far off part of the woods, where he could gather them without being noticed, but, it seemed, luck wasn't on his side.

It had taken him barely two seconds to notice the unconscious blond boy in the clearing and less than that again to take into account his hitae-ate; he was a konoha-nin. Granted, he was undoubtedly a fresh genin and hardly a threat to someone of Haku's calibre, but this put Haku in the position of having to decide what to do. Should he kill him as he slept? Should he merely retreat?

During his inner turmoil, _that _was when the other two ninja showed up. There was a man wearing an orange mask… And another, taller man, also wearing an orange mask. Haku blinked, convinced he was seeing double, at least until he noticed their mask designs were different.

Then, they started to fight.

Not just fight, though, fight would be an understatement. They were all-out battling with each other. Jounin-level jutsu were being thrown about like insults and there was an uncanny synchronicity about the way they fought, like they could predict each other's moves…

Suddenly, the taller orange-masked man got enough of an opening to form a clone and – to Haku's surprise – the clone immediately moved to target the sleeping blond boy as the other two moved further into the distance with their fight.

When the clone knelt over the blond boy with a kunai, Haku considered intervening. Only for a second, at least, until he decided to merely watch and see how it all turned out. Then, the blond boy seemed to jolt awake, jamming what appeared to be a swirling blue ball of chakra into the clone's chest.

Suddenly, Haku was very glad that he hadn't decided to kill the boy as he slept.

* * *

When Obito received his clones memories, he was somewhat … confused. Naruto was not supposed to know that jutsu yet, and he was especially not supposed to be able to produce it with one hand, which would imply…

_Well, fuck._

He really should have thought about the fact that leaving a time-travel sealing array which only required copious amounts of chakra to use behind him was _not _a smart thing to do. All the other bijuu added together only roughly equated to the amount of chakra the kyuubi possessed, so it wasn't like the chakra requirement was going to stop the dumb-blond.

The fact that the dumb-blond had followed Obito back, however, was not the most pressing matter he had to deal with.

_Really, _he thought, _was I really this distrusting?_

Yes, Obito had come back in time to redo everything correctly, only to find that his past self didn't buy a word he said and was – in a manner that _was _rather cute – trying desperately hard to kill him.

Kudos to his past self, though; damn he was good.

Future Obito briefly wandered why Naruto hadn't come back in his past body like he had, but pushed it from his mind. He could kill the dumb-bond later. Now, he had to deal with Past Obito… The bastard.

Obito would only later realise that he was, in fact, insulting himself.

* * *

Naruto wachted in dismay as Obito's body disappeared in a puff of smoke.

The fact that Obito had managed to copy his modified kage bunshin – ones which could sustain injuries without dispelling – still burnt. In the distance, he could feel two chakra signatures, both of which felt the same, moving away. That was probably the real Obito, Naruto thought.

Naruto debated whether to head after him, but shook his head. It was more important he got his bearings.

"OK," he said to himself, looking down at his body. "Right, all eight fingers… Good! Opposable thumbs as well: also good. Hmm…" He pulled down a lock of his hair. "Hair: still blond. Damnit, I was hoping for red." Naruto ran through a couple of handseals. "Finger dexterity … not bad…" He slipped his fingers into his favourite handseal, immediately creating around five kage bunshin. "Good, still got that one… Though, damn am I short!" Naruto casually dispelled his clones. "Wait a minute… did I take a whole second to make a rasengan? Well, sh*t, my chakra control's terrible."

Naruto finished his checks and stared around him.

"Scenery… I'm in Nami." Naruto glanced up at sky. "Looking at the time, and my surroundings, around now should be when…"

Naruto caught sight of Haku. He smiled sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head.

"Hehehe," he said casually. "Sorry about that?"

Naruto had great fun watching Haku snap out of the trance he appeared to be in, before smiling demurely.

"It's quite alright," Haku said. _Damn_, he'd forgotten how much like a girl Haku sounded. "We all have our moments of crazy."

Naruto grinned. Too true.

"So, what are you doing out here?" Haku asked, though by this point, he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to know the answer.

"Training," Naruto said with a shrug.

"Training?" Haku feigned innocence. "And your hitae-ate? By any chance are you a ninja?"

Naruto stared at Haku incredulously.

"Are you honestly asking me that?" he asked.

Haku titled his head to the side.

"What do you mean?"

"After you saw me slam a _rasengan_ into that guy's chest, are you honestly asking me if I'm a ninja?" Naruto asked.

"Well, I suppose it's self-explanatory," Haku said. "I apologise for my question, but I merely wanted to confirm. For all I know, you could merely be an extremely dangerous civilian."

"What sort of extremely dangerous civilians have you ran into over the years?" Naruto asked, honestly curious.

"Not many," Haku admitted, before turning away and starting to gather herbs.

"What's your name?" Naruto asked suddenly, watching Haku pick herbs. It was more of a formality than anything else, seeing as he already knew Haku's name.

"Haku," Haku answered shortly. "You?"

"Naruto," Naruto replied with a grin. "Uzumaki Naruto."

"Tell me, Naruto," Haku said, pausing in his herb gathering. "Do you have any precious people? People you'd die to protect?"

Naruto shrugged, trying his hard not to cast his mind back to the past … or future … damnit, that was confusing.

"A few," he said cryptically. Most of them were long dead, though, Naruto added bitterly.

"That's good then," Haku said with a smile. "It's only when protecting those precious to you that you can become truly strong."

Those words reverberated through Naruto's consciousness.

"_When a person has something important and precious they desperately want to protect… only then can they become truly strong…"_

It was so long ago for him. The words that Haku had told him all those years ago, when he was twelve, barely a ninja; the words that had changed his life as a shinobi… He couldn't believe he had forgotten them.

It had been so hard, Naruto reflected, to keep on moving after Obito. He'd left everything behind, Konoha, his dream, Sakura … and wagered it all on his ability to find and kill Obito. He'd lived for so long on the run, Naruto could barely recall what it felt like to be back in Konoha… Not that there had been much left in Konoha for him apart from painful reminders…

Naruto pushed the thoughts of the past from his mind. None of it had happened yet.

Naruto smiled.

He had so much he wanted to protect now. Maybe, he thought with a smile, a second chance wouldn't be too bad.

"Thank you, Haku," Naruto said.

"For what?" Haku asked, looking up from his herb gathering.

"For reminding me of something important that I had forgotten." Naruto ran a hand through his hair, standing up as he did so. "I've gotta head back now, but it was nice meeting you." Then, just to screw with the poor ice-user's mind, he added, "Tell Zabuza I said 'hi'."

As he turned to leave, Naruto grinned, imagining the complete and utter look of shock on Haku's face.

No, he thought. This wouldn't be bad at all.

* * *

_Hahahaha! Double Update!_

_The first two chapters are short because I'm simply testing the water. Tell me what you think.  
_

_FriedIce  
_

_PS: Review!  
_


	3. Familiar Faces

**Chapter Two  
Familiar Faces**

The ceiling had a dangerous number of cracks in it.

Naruto followed each crevice with his eyes, allowing his mind to wander as he pursued the pointless task of searching for meaning in the plaster. He shifted his weight on the lumpy bed, careful not to create too much noise, his eyes not leaving the ceiling.

What, exactly, was going on?

Now _there_ was a question he wanted answers to. Naruto was back in the past, with memories of a future that had yet to happen, not _entirely_ sure how he got there. OK, Naruto relented, he had _no clue _how he got there.

Each time he replayed his fight with Obito in his head, he became more confused.

From what Naruto could deduce, Obito had been back in the past for longer than him – probably an after-effect from his earlier completion of the Uzumaki space-time ninjutsu – as Naruto had only really … _(Returned? Awoken? Appeared?) _… snapped to it when he'd had a kunai to his throat. That made sense to Naruto.

What didn't make sense was why Obito had been battling someone with a nearly identical chakra signature.

The only reasonable explanation for this was a Kage Bunshin. But that really didn't make sense either. If Obito was so set upon killing Naruto, why had he chosen to spar with his own Kage Bunshin instead of taking the blond out? It wasn't like Naruto was a particularly fear-inducing opponent to Obito and, if he was, why hadn't Obito been trying harder to kill him?

Furthermore, Naruto _knew_ Obito. They'd battled each other so many times now, that even without the Sharingan, their fights were like a well-rehearsed dance. "_You punch, I dodge, you kick, I counter, you go left, I take right…" _

Obito and Naruto knew each other's fighting styles like the back of their hands. And Obito was _not _the type who liked to fight with clones. In fact Obito wasn't the type to even _spar_ with clones, _especially_ not in the heat of battle and though Naruto had tried it himself once – for laughs and a bet with Gaara – it wasn't something to be recommended either.

Naruto groaned. He was getting nowhere.

This was why he hated this type of thinking. He always just chased himself around in a circle.

Naruto found a particularly deep crack on the ceiling. He prepared to trace it along… Ah screw it. He'd just ask the fox for help.

Naruto closed his cerulean blue eyes, painting his face into an expression of absolute peace. To anyone watching, it would seem like the hyperactive blond was merely falling asleep.

Then, with an ease that seemed to have come back with him, Naruto slipped into his mindscape.

* * *

Naruto hated the feeling of wet feet, most especially when he was wearing socks. He supposed it was pure luck, then, that he materialised inside his mindscape dressed in his old orange jumpsuit and open-toed sandals with the bottoms of his trousers rolled up to stop them from getting wet.

When he noticed the murky water that lurked around his ankles, Naruto couldn't help but scowl. Try as he might – and he had tried countless times – Naruto seemed to be unable to alter his mindscape. It seemed like his mind was destined to remain a sewer. He severely hoped that that didn't say anything about him.

Finding the silence in his mindscape slightly eerie – previously the fox had either growled/screamed/spoken to him – Naruto spun around, his well-trained eyes searching the surroundings. Finally, they fell upon the bars to the cage, the seal still firmly in place.

Naruto suppressed a scowl at the sight of it, but walked boldly towards the cage.

"Kurama?" he called.

The only response Naruto received was a low growl that made the water tremble around him.

"What the hell is going on, Kurama?" Naruto asked, undeterred. "What happened?"

A second growl reverberated around the mindscape, deep and low enough that Naruto felt his bones shake.

"Kurama?" Naruto repeated, trying to keep the worry out of his voice. Kurama had never been chatty, but normally the fox was far more ... verbose, even about his discontent.

"**HOW DARE YOU, BRAT.**" The words echoed through the sewer system, bouncing off the walls for what seemed like an eternity.

Naruto had to suppress a flinch. He hadn't heard Kurama like that since … well, since _before…_

"**HOW DARE YOU ADDRESS ME WITH SUCH FAMILIARITY… PUNY HUMAN…**"

A pair of huge iridescent red eyes appeared behind the bars, unblinking and laced with malice. With a clench of his teeth, Naruto suppressed the flashbacks that seemed ready to roll in his head and bit down the instinctual flare of fear that was gripping his stomach.

Unlikely as it was, he _really_ hoped that the fox had suddenly grown a sense of humour.

"Kurama," began Naruto apprehensively, "if this is your idea of a joke, it ain't funny…"

"**THERE YOU GO AGAIN, THROWING THE NAME OF A DEMON AROUND LIKE IT BEARS NO WEIGHT … I COULD QUASH YOU UNDERFOOT WITHOUT EVEN THINKING…**"

"Kurama, you _told _me I could call you by your name. Remember?" Naruto was mostly speaking for himself, insisting in his mind that this was all just a bad joke the fox had decided to play. "You know, you call me Naruto, I call you Kurama?"

"**YOU ARE DELUSIONAL, MORTAL BRAT. ****_I, _****THE GREAT KYUUBI NO KITSUNE,WOULD NEVER TELL MY NAME TO SOMEONE LIKE YOU…**"

"This isn't getting any funnier," Naruto said, with one final prayer that this really _was _a joke.

Then, he stepped forward.

As Naruto moved closer, the face of the Kyuubi, hidden in shadow, came into view. Ignoring the devilishly sharp incisors that Naruto was convinced were the size of his torso, Naruto studied it.

Dense as he had been in his childhood, Naruto had gained one extremely useful skill from being on the bad side of every single villager. He could read people. He knew exactly how to make them snap, to make them lie, to make them squirm… Naturally, Naruto had never really used it for the latter two back then, but the skill remained.

Unrelenting, Naruto stared, sky blue eyes wide open, at the face of the Kyuubi, well aware of the snarls that the fox was sending his way. He searched for some sort of recognition – or even the funny look of respect and appraisal Naruto had caught the Kyuubi looking at him with occasionally – but found nothing. Nothing but a sense of contempt and blood-thirst.

Naruto's stomach plummeted into the pits of his drenched feet.

Kurama had been as old as chakra itself, but he wasn't that great an actor. Naruto – even aged four – would have been more convincing than the fox at times. Which meant … this wasn't _his _Kurama.

And that royally sucked.

In the future, Kurama had been one of Naruto's few allies. When the world was after them, no matter who Naruto had to kill to find Obito, even when Naruto's path had taken him into darknesses he didn't want to remember, Kurama had been the one constant in his life

And that Kurama was not here, when Naruto needed him most, made the blond want to pout and stamp his foot, declaring it wasn't fair.

But life wasn't fair.

And life went on.

Cringing internally, Naruto said, "Kyuubi-sama."

It was a half-hearted attempt to get on this fox's good side, even though it made Naruto feel as if he was wringing out his lungs. It had taken Naruto years to get Kurama to _tell _him his real name, let alone use it… but, if Naruto had to choose between an angry ten-story tall demon fox living his stomach and a somewhat placated one… It was an easy choice. Who knew? Maybe the fox would finally stop screwing with his chakra control…

Naruto snorted. Yeah, and _maybe_ Hatake Kakashi would be on time for anything other than important missions.

Unlikely.

"Just answer me this, Kyuubi-sama, and I will leave you in peace." Naruto paused; he had to be sure. "Is there anyone I remind you of?"

There was yet another growl from the giant beast.

"**YOU REMIND ME OF NO-ONE, BRAT…**"

Naruto could practically feel the derision _dripping _off the words. He waited, knowing what was coming next, but wishing it wasn't.

**"ALTHOUGH YOUR FEATURES BEAR A CERTAIN LIKENESS TO THAT ONE SPINELESS MORTAL WHO SEALED ME…**"

Naruto spotted the flaring anger in the Kyuubi's eyes and instinctively backed away from the cage. A growl of previously unheard volume resonated throughout the chamber, the sheer force of it almost knocking Naruto off his feet.

"**DAMNED YONDAIME! I'LL TEAR HIM TO SHREDS! UNSEAL ME! FACE ME! COWARDLY MORTAL!**"

Naruto ducked behind a brick arch in his mindscape, tuning out the beginning of what he was sure would become a rant of tempestuous proportions. He sighed, sinking down into a seated position and placing his head in his hands.

_That _had confirmed it to Naruto.

One of the things Kurama used to say to Naruto was that his father was a great man. Sure, a fucked up bastard of a great man, but a great man all the same. Despite this, though, Kurama always, always told Naruto that he wasn't his father. And that he shouldn't try to become him either.

**"—I SHALL EAT YOUR LIVER THEN REGURGITATE IT AND FEED IT TO YOUR YOUNG—"**

_And_ Kurama was one of the few people who had never told Naruto he looked like his father. The fox had, when asked, told him he looked like 'Naruto'. Which was a total cop-out, but had made Naruto smile all the same.

**"—SPLEEN WILL LOOK MORE HUMAN THAN YOU—"**

Naruto swallowed the growing feeling of nostalgia within him, tuning in briefly to the Kyuubi's rant. Sentimentality was not what he needed right now, and, much as he hated to admit it, there was a certain amount of eloquence to the fox's threats… He'd have to use some of them one day.

Naruto debated thanking Kurama for his time, but decided to just let him vent. The fox obviously had a lot of anger to work through and Naruto didn't particularly want to be present for _all _of the insults to his parents.

Sighing in a way that made him feel far too old, Naruto ducked out of his mindscape.

When he opened his eyes and found himself staring at the darkened ceiling, Naruto sighed yet again. He raised his hand up to trace a crack with his finger, but miserably let it fall to his face and closed his eyes.

It had been one of the few things that stopped Naruto from giving up. Obito was still out there; he hadn't got Kurama; they still had a chance.

Granted, the fox wasn't the best confidante – or the best listener for that matter – and had a somewhat sarcastic demeanour – OK, a _very_ sarcastic demeanour – but, when it counted, the kitsune had always been there to give Naruto the advice he needed. Whether that was a few comforting words or a metaphorical slap around the face – most of the time it was a metaphorical slap – Naruto had known that if it mattered, Kurama would be there.

The fox had been there all through the past four years, and had listened to Naruto wail about not being strong enough on a monthly basis, putting up with far more teenage angst than he should have had to. Not that he had much choice, but still...

_I'm not much of a jinchuriki, am I? _Naruto thought despondently, _I mean, I lost my bijuu…_

Wait a second… Naruto's eyes snapped open, focusing on the ceiling through his fingers. _The jinchuriki_.

Naruto may have been without _his _Kurama, but he still had _a _Kurama. He was _still _the Kyuubi jinchuriki and the first among equals when with the rest of the vessels. It didn't matter that the fox was back to being an ass, because he _still had the Kyuubi. _

And, as the Kyuubi jinchuriki, he could call a … 'conference'.

That the Bijuu were all splits of the same entity – the Juubi – had certain advantages and disadvantages, depending on how you looked at it. The main disadvantage was that they all had a definite axe-murdering psycho side – one which rarely came through, unless they were sealed by a 'cowardly, fucked up blond bastard' or the like – which Naruto knew to be rather dangerous when toyed with. The main advantage, however, was the inexplicable link between all of the Bijuu.

Their very threads of existence were tied together and this link allowed them to, in times of imminent danger, call – as Naruto and the other jinchuriki had dubbed it – a conference. The Bijuu didn't really use this ability and neither did, for the most part, their vessels for the simple reason that the Bijuu had more important things to do and most jinchuriki ended up either going insane, hating humanity or becoming creepily introverted.

Their generation had been the exception.

Not to the insanity, the hatred and the introverted tendencies, but to calling conferences.

After the extraction of the Bijuu, their jinchuriki's conscious was generally also extracted due to the intertwined nature of both of their chakras. That was the reason why most jinchuriki died during the extraction process – because their soul had simply left their body.

The only exceptions had been Gaara – who had survived due to Chiyo's forced severance of the redhead's connection with the Ichibi – and Naruto's mother. For the best part of a year, Naruto had had no clue how the latter could have survived, even only briefly.

And so he had hit the books, eventually stumbling across the answer two days later in Konoha's Forbidden Library.

In order to stop a jinchuriki from dying from chakra overload, most Bijuu were sealed within their hosts before they reached the age of ten, giving the chakra system time to adapt before they were adults. A side effect of this was that the bijuu's chakra and the host's eventually became linked to a certain degree, meaning extraction led to death.

His mother was different; she was an Uzumaki.

There was a reason that all of Konoha's jinchuriki had been Uzumaki, and it wasn't just limited to the fact that certain members of the clan could control the Bijuu with their chakra. It was because the Uzumaki were chakra monsters themselves.

At the age of six, an Uzumaki child had a chakra capacity similar to that of a normal fifteen year old. Adding a Bijuu to the mix should have logically been suicide, given the extensive nature of their chakra networks, but the Uzumaki's potential to control ridiculous amounts of chakra stopped this from happening. Because of the fact that Uzumaki children already had extensive chakra networks at the age the Bijuu was sealed in them, their chakra and the Bijuu's didn't become intertwined and they could be separated at a later age without too much harm to the individual.

Naruto seemed to be the exception to this rule. He had been newly born when the Kyuubi was sealed within him, meaning that yes, their chakras were intertwined and yes, he would die if the Kyuubi were to be extracted.

After the eight Bijuu apart from Kurama had been extracted, they – and their jinchuriki's conscious – had been trapped.

Maybe it had been the boredom, maybe it had been the need for fresh company, but whatever it was, the extraction of the Bijuu didn't stop Naruto from calling conferences.

Over the four years he and Gaara had spent tracking Obito, Naruto had grown oddly close to his fellow jinchuriki. It hadn't been like they were going anywhere – being trapped and all – and in between the high-speed pursuits and the life-threatening ambushes, Naruto had had a lot of spare time to get to know them all.

Sure they were an odd bunch. And _sure, _they wouldn't be _his _jinchuriki, but they were familiar faces. And they wouldn't submit him to age long rants about how evil his father was. Well, most of them wouldn't at least.

Naruto shifted his conscious to the conference plane, grimacing at the white stretches before him, before sending out a pulse of chakra designed to act as a signal.

Fuu was the first to appear.

She dropped down from above, landing in front of Naruto with a grace he could only _dream_ of having. Despite being eight years younger than when he last saw her, Fuu didn't appear to have changed much. She was still flat-chested, boyish and cheerful.

Fuu ran a hand through her green hair and then grinned at Naruto.

"You called, Nine?" she asked, her eyes glinting.

Naruto froze in shock. Was that just Fuu's weird way of saying hi, or did…

"Man, Nine, you sure know how to fuck things up…" a voice said from behind. "Screwing with the space-time continuum… That's a whole new level of crazy, even for you."

Naruto whirled around to see Yugito standing behind him, leaning against an invisible wall. She was dressed the same as most kunoichi – in a manner designed to accentuate her (ahem) assets – and was looking Naruto up and down with a look on her face that was a mixture of pride and reverence.

It was almost enough to make Naruto shiver.

"Naruto, this better be good," Gaara was saying as he appeared next to Fuu, scowling slightly. "The Kazekage looked as if he was going to have a heart attack when I started to fall asleep in front of him." Gaara paused, seeming to think things over for a bit. "Actually, this could be amusing. Take however long you like."

Another figure appeared slightly in the distance. He was dressed in full Iwagakure armour, with the cowl that was meant to obscure his face pulled down and hanging around his neck loosely. Tanned skin surrounded his yellow eyes as he looked at Naruto wearily.

Naruto recognised him as Han, the jinchuriki of the Gobi.

"What is it with you and trouble, Nine?" Han asked as he walked towards Naruto with the demeanour of a parent talking to their wayward offspring.

Naruto looked around the vessels' expectant faces.

"You remember?" he stammered out.

It was Yugito who spoke up.

"How could we not, brat?" she asked rhetorically. "As if _anyone_ could forget _that_ orange monstrosity."

And there it was, like clockwork. A dig at his choice in dress. If there was one thing that Yugito had never let Naruto forget, it was that his orange jumpsuit, in her humble opinion, sucked.

They'd had this same exchange so many times in so many different variants that Naruto's reaction was instinctual. He scowled, pouted and crossed his arms over his chest, the very picture of a petulant child.

"Orange is a cool colour!" he defended. "It may not be stealthy, but it's still awesome!"

Yugito merely waved her hand, throwing a casual disbelieving glance his way. "Whatever you say, brat," she said.

Naruto bit down his next childish retort, remembering that _technically_, they were all adults here.

"Where are the others?" he asked, changing the subject.

Yugito shrugged. She held her hand above the white floor and a white chair formed up, which she promptly sat on. Once she was comfortably seated, she answered, "Bee's in a meeting with the Raikage."

Gaara too, formed a seat and sat down, muttering, "Didn't stop me."

"Roushi's in the middle of a mission," Han excused his fellow Iwa-nin, also taking a seat.

Fuu lay down on the floor, languidly stretching out her short form.

"Utakata and Yagura are probably busy," she said lazily. "I heard that the rebellion in Kiri is at its climax."

Deciding that he should probably ask about _that _particular issue later, Naruto took a seat and regarded the four people present. Five out of nine was better than none, he supposed.

"I guess you all know why we are here, then?" Naruto asked, his voice assuming an edge of authority.

It was the tone he'd used to command armies, the manner of speaking that could quiet the masses, invoke terror in enemies and stir up passion amongst soldiers. And, to the jinchuriki, it was the voice that Naruto put on when it was time for them to stop messing about and actually do some work. It worked ninety per cent of the time.

Fuu rolled over onto her stomach to look up at Naruto with wide, orange eyes.

"Yep," she intoned, popping the 'p'. "You screwed with the space-time continuum, landed us all in the past and are completely unaware of how you did it."

She remained staring at Naruto in a way that was somewhat unnerving until Gaara spoke up.

"Not exactly," the redhead said awkwardly.

Fuu propped her head with her arms, her gaze beckoning Gaara to go on. A quick glance from the redhead to the rest of the people present told him that he needed to expand.

"Naruto wasn't the one to screw with time," Gaara explained. "It was Obito. He used the Bijuu's chakra that he had captured to power an old Uzumaki seal, which I'm guessing had the unfortunate side effect of dragging you lot back here, due to the fact that you're all attached to your Bijuu on a spiritual level."

Han raised his hand politely.

"Question, One," he said. "No offence meant, but how are you here then? Chiyo-sama separated your conscious from Shukaku's when she brought you back to life." Han paused, his gaze drifting to Naruto before he added, "And what about Nine?"

Gaara's usually stoic face twisted slightly in annoyance.

"I was getting to that, Five," he said. "You see, Naruto and I arrived on scene in Uzu too late to stop the seal from activating. We were … discussing our next course of action when Naruto collapsed in pain. The last thing I remember before the everything faded into white was feeling a spike of the Kyuubi's chakra. Neither Naruto nor I have any idea why we are back here."

Yugito creased her blond eyebrows together in a frown. "That doesn't explain it," she stated. "In fact, that really doesn't explain much. Is there any other information that you can give us?"

Gaara let out a long sigh, closing his eyes and rubbing his temples.

"I tried to talk to Shukaku about it, but you'd be surprised how one-sided conversations with him can be," Gaara said. "I don't remember him being so … vocal about his insanity."

Han quietly raised his eyebrows. Yugito snorted. Naruto bit down a comment. Fuu, however, lacked the tact of the other jinchuriki.

The mint-haired girl pushed herself up into a sitting position and flicked her hair out of her face as she said, "That's because, One, you were insane last time too."

Gaara shrugged, unabashed and unoffended. Then, in a deadpan voice that only Gaara could hold in the situation, he said, "It was the dark side. They gave me cookies."

Maybe it was the fact that Gaara had just cracked a joke. Maybe it was because the image of the Ichibi baking cookies and giving them to _anyone _– probably with a declaration of, "I used organic blood to make these because the quality of the end product is just _so_ much higher than if you use regular blood." – was just so ridiculous that it was hard to keep a straight face. Either way, it took all of three seconds for the company to fall about laughing.

When his laughter died down, Naruto's face turned serious. "Speaking of insane," he said, "what's up with Yagura? Is he still…" Naruto drifted off, unsure of a tactful way to finish the sentence.

"A whacked out racist psycho?" Fuu happily supplied.

"Yeah, that," Naruto said in a tone that implied he meant it in the nicest way possible.

Gaara, the usual source of information for the jinchuriki, shrugged. "Sorry," the redhead said. "The Kazekage isn't tapped into the Kiri grapevine – I think he views it as too unstable for our spies."

It was Yugito who spoke up.

"No, actually," she said, causing the other four people to focus their attention fully on her. "Coming back in time helped with that, I suppose. The genjutsu on him broke almost the second we all got back here. Unfortunately for him, he's currently in the unhappy position of having his entire country hating him and having a wide-spread revolutionary group after his head. I think he had to be rescued by Utakata. They sent Bee and me a missive asking for a place to hide."

That didn't make sense to Naruto. He had barely been back a few hours … and even the fastest ninja couldn't make it from Kiri to Kumo in less than five days. And that made his Obito-being-back-and-wreaking-havoc-in-the-past timeline a little inaccurate.

"How long have you guys all been back, then?" Naruto asked.

"About a week," answered Fuu, now playing with her short hair. "Eight days to be precise. We were wondering when you would try to call a conference."

At this, Yugito and Han nodded in agreement. Gaara, however, pinched his forehead together and caught Naruto's eye.

"I've only been back a few hours," he said. "And so, I would wager a guess, has Naruto." Gaara sighed. "This complicates things."

Another question added itself to the countless ones already circling Naruto's head. Why wait? Why had Obito waited eight days to kill him?

Naruto's eyes widened slightly.

"Wave," he whispered.

Of course. His impromptu training session was one of the few times that Naruto was alone, outside of the village and away from one of his legendary teachers. Why would Obito attack early and make a stir when he could quietly off Naruto in the countryside of Wave and blame it on Gatou's thugs?

"He's doing his epiphany face again," Fuu declared obstinately.

"I don't know," commented Yugito, peering closer at Naruto. "It's kind of cute."

"Two," Han interrupted. "He's fourteen years younger than you."

Naruto's face broke out into a smile. Which was unfortunate timing, given the previous conversation.

"It doesn't matter," Naruto said, speaking up louder now. "It doesn't matter that Obito got a headstart. What matters is that we're back, that this is real and that we're alive. We have a chance to do this over again and, this time, we're going to win."

Fuu's face brightened into a smile as Gaara caught Naruto's eye. The blond saw the small smirk tugging at Gaara's lips. The one that said 'I knew you'd pull through'. The grin that broke out on Naruto's face was absolutely devious.

"Sure," Naruto said, waving off the issue without much regard. "We've got Future Obito to deal with, but we have so many more advantages this time. We're not going to lose. In fact, we've going to beat Obito into the dirt so hard that we could make a plaster cast of his face using the imprint. Why? Because we have one thing he doesn't."

"Warped as they may be, moral compasses?" Fuu guessed.

"Free will?" Gaara put forward.

"Sanity?" Yugito tried.

Naruto shook his head at all of them, the grin still there.

"Feminine wiles?" Fuu guessed again, only to be shot down by four incredulous stares. "I was talking about Two!" she defended. "Geez, no need to be so mean…"

Gaara shook his head, then adopted a smirk.

"Uzumaki Naruto," he said in mock seriousness, then weakly punched his fist into the air in a poor imitation of the manner Naruto used to declare stuff. "Dattebayo."

Naruto scowled at Gaara as Fuu began to cackle.

Han cut them off. "We're jinchuriki," he answered easily. "We have our bijuu."

Naruto nodded, recapturing the attention of his company.

"Damn straight," he said. "We're jinchuriki. We are the power of human sacrifice, or whatever the freak who came up with our name intended for us. We're jinchuriki and we have our bijuu and, despite what he may think, it's going to be nine different types of hell for Obito to get them again."

The atmosphere was tense, full of a combined will, until—

"Is it wrong that I have the sudden urge to shout something about youth right now?" Fuu asked.

The four other jinchuriki snapped their heads round to look at her.

"Yes," they said in unison.

Fuu laughed nervously under the glares of her friends, shrinking slightly.

Gaara took the initiative now. "Does anyone have anything important they need to do?" he asked. "Because it's going to be a long night and we need a plan."

* * *

Kakashi stared down at his unconscious student. When they got back to Konoha, he needed to talk to the boy about overtraining himself, especially on missions.

Naruto looked extremely peaceful, though. Peaceful was never a word Kakashi thought he would ever use to describe Naruto, but with his blond hair splayed across the pillow, he vivacious blue eyes closed and his loud mouth silenced, the young genin seemed almost serene.

Naruto had dragged himself in, late the previous night, just as Kakashi was about to send Sasuke out to fetch him. He hadn't even glanced at Kakashi, seemingly in a trance as he trooped up the stairs and collapsed on the bed.

Even the smell of breakfast wafting up the stairs hadn't caused the blond to stir.

Kakashi sighed before running a hand through his gravity defying hair. It would be best to leave Naruto behind today. He would be useless in a fight if he was fighting tiredness as well as his opponent.

With that thought in mind, Hatake Kakashi left the sleeping jinchuriki alone in the room.

* * *

Some of the plans the jinchuriki had been known to invent on the spur of the moment could be said to be somewhat … insane.

Most people would insist that there was a very large difference between something being so crazy it might just work and an idea being so crazy the solution barely fit the problem, but the jinchuriki failed to see the division. If something worked, it worked, so why should they complain?

Granted, even someone crazy would question the feasibility of bribing Iwa to leave them alone with _bananas _of all things, yet, Naruto could say, it had worked.

It was that sort of out-of-the-country-let-alone-the-box plan that they needed right now. Never in any of their strategies for taking down Obito had they considered the possibility of time-travel being added into the mix, so they had to pretty much start from scratch.

There simply wasn't enough time for them to do the sort of in-depth planning they had been able to do in the future, so the majority of their time was spent sketching out a rough outline of strategies and ways to deal with what they assumed Obito's main plans were. As he had already made an attempt of Naruto's life, priority was put on keeping the blond alive.

Escape routes were planned, rescue plans formulated and decisions over timings were made.

Planning took such a long time, no one bothered to even attempt to document it, but as time passed, it became clear that they had all been unconscious for long enough.

Han was the first to leave, citing a need to contact Roushi. Next came Yugito, who said that one of her subordinates was trying to shake her awake. Fuu dropped out next, mumbling something about an alarm clock, leaving only Naruto and Gaara.

"I hope you know what you're doing, Naruto," Gaara said. "This plan is shaky. It could go very, very wrong very, very easily."

"Don't I know it, Gaara," Naruto replied. He paused, thinking, before speaking again. "Are you OK? It must have been a shock to see, well, to see _him _alive after the chuunin exams."

Gaara raised his invisible eyebrows. Not that he was shocked that Naruto had thought of that, but more that he was shocked the blond was taking the time to ask.

"I will admit, it was a bit of a shock, but nothing I couldn't handle," the redheaded ex-Kage replied calmly. "Besides, I won't have to put up with him long; Orochimaru is going to kill him about halfway through the chuunin exams."

Naruto held Gaara's gaze for a while before smiling playfully.

"Man, that's cold," he taunted, "even for you, One."

Gaara shrugged, not even denying it.

"What about you?" he asked. "If seeing the Fourth Kazekage alive was a shock for me, how did you deal with seeing Kakashi-san again?"

Naruto rubbed his temples.

"I didn't," he admitted. "I was a bit … distracted when I returned to Tsunami's house – which it's a miracle I managed to find; it has been close to eight years since I last went there – so I sort of sleep-walked to my room and collapsed on the bed. I can bet that I'm going to get a lecture about over-training myself when I get back; to him it must seem like I've slipped into a coma…"

Gaara began to nod, then froze.

"What about Sasuke?"

Naruto shrugged.

"I really don't know how I'm going to deal with him," Naruto said. "I know we discussed what to do about him in general, but everything regarding the bastard is still a bit raw, even after all these years."

"You could save him, you know," Gaara pointed out.

"I know!" Naruto snapped. Gaara didn't even flinch. "I know, OK? It's just … after everything he did, it was like he thought that just… just… It was like he thought it made it all better!"

Gaara shrugged.

"Maybe it did," he said philosophically.

Naruto scowled.

"Maybe it didn't," Naruto bit back, then shook his head. "It doesn't matter," he said after a while. "I'll burn that bridge when we come to it."

Gaara nodded, his observing Naruto intensely for a moment before shrugging again.

"Speaking of fire," Gaara said. "Did the Kyuubi have anything interesting to add about the Great Time Screw-Up?"

Naruto froze. "No," the blond said sharply. "No, he didn't. He didn't come back."

There was a lingering pain in Naruto's eyes, one which went deeper than the ones associated with Sasuke and Kakashi. Gaara reached forward uncertainly to put a hand on Naruto's shoulder, but the blond jinchuriki flinched away from it.

"Are you sure?" Gaara asked.

"Positive," Naruto stated bitterly. "The bastard fox started screaming about ripping my father to shreds – something about his spleen too."

"Could it be something else?" asked Gaara. "I mean, I came back… Are you sure it's not something to do with the seal? Or maybe another time lag? Or…"

But Naruto was no longer listening. His mind had zeroed in on the first statement. The seal. Yang. The body. Yin. The mind. Which meant…

"Gaara," Naruto asked, breaking the redhead off from his tirade of plausible explanations. "How would you feel about a high-risk, low-reward heist?"

"Dubious at best," Gaara answered. "Why?"

"No reason," Naruto said innocently.

Gaara observed Naruto again before shrugging. The redhead stood up and brushed himself off.

"I should go back," he said. "I reckon that I've freaked the living hell out my father enough for one night."

Naruto nodded, standing up and grasping Gaara's shoulder.

"Stay strong," he said.

Gaara smiled gently.

"You too," he replied.

Gaara backed away from Naruto and closed his eyes. As he began to fade into the whiteness, Gaara caught Naruto's eye one last time.

"Oh," he said, "and Naruto?"

Naruto blinked at him.

"Welcome back."

* * *

_Hahaha, I am alive… Despite the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme's multiple attempts to off me in the moors of Dartmoor. I have blisters on my feet and hands, and bruises on my shoulders and forearms, but I am most certainly still here. I got back on Sunday late at night, woke up on Monday and rewrote this entire chapter. Yes, all 6,000 words of it. Why? Because I'm a boss._

_I love that last line. It refers to a lot, all in one. He's saying welcome back to Naruto because Naruto is back to his old self, as well as being back in the past. Anyway, hope you like the new chapter. Next chapter we have the conclusion of the Wave Arc, when Naruto starts to screw with the timeline. At least, hopefully…._

_Haha... typos, typos galore... Here's my fave:_

"Does anyone have any**one** important they need to do?"

_Twisted, twisted mind._

_Over and out,_

_Your Very Bruised and Abused FriedIce_

_PS: It was a hard weekend. Drop me a review._


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